California Church Mobilizes 10,000 Volunteers for 'Weekend of Service' Worth $2 Million
A church in California will be mobilizing an estimated 10,000 volunteers to perform over 400 charitable service projects over the course of 48 hours, estimated to be worth over $2 million in billable labor and material.
Known as the "Weekend of Service", the multisite North Coast Church is doing a series of projects April 25-26 meant to benefit over 100 locations in six cities in North San Diego County.
Larry Osborne, pastor at North Coast Church, provided comments to The Christian Post in which he described some of the actions the volunteers will perform.
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"We'll be making improvements at 50+ public schools, ranging from elementary to high school … We're serving a wide cross section of organizations both secular and faith-based," said Osborne.
"The other roughly 60 locations include everything from resource centers to homeless shelters, community centers, a hospital, city parks, veteran and senior housing, and other non-profits that serve the community."
Regarding the large number of volunteers gathered, Osborne explained to CP that North Coast "is built around small groups, which greatly helps us mobilize our congregation."
"These small groups do service projects year round, with an average of 10 projects per week, so the concept of actively serving our community is already an important part of our church," continued Osborne.
"When it comes to a massive project like this, we do our best to make sure people know the magnitude of the need and God seems to always touch the hearts of our people to step up and get it done."
This year's number of volunteers is double the 5,000 gathered for North Coast's first Weekend of Service back in 2007.
The labor for the volunteers is broken down into 10,000 4-hour work slots, which will include Sunday morning.
North Coast organizes a massive "Weekend of Service" once every two years, when the church shuts down the congregation's normal worship services to allow members to go out and be the "hands and feets of Jesus," according to the church's press statement.
When asked by CP if such a move is placing works over faith, Pastor Osborne responded that he and his congregation are "not putting works over faith; we're simply putting our faith to work."
"The Bible says that faith without works is dead. This is one way we can put our faith to work and show our community the love of Jesus with no strings attached," said Osborne.
"We're always trying to help our congregation understand that church is not something we simply go to. It's what we are. There's no better way to do that than to have a 'Weekend of Service.'"
